Best Film Ensemble

Alexis Ren and Alan Bersten’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ showmance is real, and it’s so not spectacular

Well, guys, guess it only took a couple of days for Alan Bersten to make sure he was “100 percent certain” how he feels about Alexis Ren. A week after the model revealed she’s “developing feelings” for her pro partner on “Dancing with the Stars,” he reciprocated those feelings — and a kiss — on Monday’s Country Night.

“Last week, some things were said,” Bersten said in their rehearsal package during a horseback riding trip (how romantic!). “I’m in a place where, we worked so hard for this amazing journey together, and I’m afraid I will mess that up in some way. But I’ve never had an experience like this. It’s so easy to just hang out with you and have fun and not worry about everything else. I know that you put yourself out there last weekend, and I do have feelings for you. And I really feel like I am falling for you.”

Translation: TPTB told me I need to have feelings for you on camera. The most suspicious part of his speech is that the last sentence is played over him caressing her hand and it sounds like it was added in ADR. “Hey Alan, can you come in for a few minutes on Sunday? We need to clean up this line here.” And then they sealed it with a kiss that looked like Bersten lost a bet.

Look, like we said last week, they likely do have crushes on each other — they’re young, hot and are in physical contact all day. It makes sense. Tons of people have probably developed crushes and/or hooked up on the show. But they are in a heightened and heavily produced environment. The true test will be when the show is over and they’re back in the real world and they’re not in a high-pressure situation contorting their bodies eight hours a day.

More than that, though, the whole way the show has shoved this showmance down our throat is out of control. Yes, there’s always going to some parts that are produced, but the “elephant in the room” conversation, the onscreen confessionals, the kiss — the kiss! It’s all so heavy-handed and disingenuous. You know you’re on camera. First of all, outside of a dating show, why would you ever agree to kiss on camera? (Well, we know why.) Second of all, you can’t agree to do all this PDA on camera and then act chagrined when people ask about the showmance.

Alas, that’s part of the whole plan — and it seems to be working for now. Ren and Bersten survived the double elimination after two weeks of this nonsense and them being in jeopardy. We’ll never know who, if anyone, is voting because of their showmance, but there have been and will be better showmances to ship.

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